God Says..."Clean My House!"

O.k. so He (God) may not have actually spoken those words to anyone directly but He has given me that burden to tidy up His house (the church building) and make it more practical for ministry.
The three biggest projects I have started in the past six months to do that are coming close to being done. Our Youth Room is now only needing new carpet and it will be done. I reclaimed a storage room and moved the contents to another part of the building where it was better suited, organized the room into a youth and music ministry storage closet. Everything prior to my coming was left out in the youth room and offices. I hate it when things aren't organized and get in my way. The next big project was completed last Wednesday which was reorganizing the choir room and redo the music library number system. I added room for about 6-8 new chairs in the choir room as we are growing towards an attendance of 30 in choir! As I am writing this, I just completed cleaning out the choir music library of all its antiquated files, music, equipment, etc. that hasn't been used in 30-40 years! (no joke...some of the stuff was dated in the 60's and 70's)

Why should a church be cleaned out? Because if a church is filthy, it shows how well the spiritual life of the church body might be. Is someone going to feel that church is important if they see so much junk lying around the facility? No! For those of you Bayshore readers...join me and the others who have helped in making the church more practical for ministry!

Slam It In Gear...Pedal To The Metal !

These past few days at church have been spent getting things going and finishing projects started in the past. The FUSION LAB remodeling took a back seat on my priority list and needed to get done and get done right! John from my church has worked with me all day these past few days in getting things done!
Things in our church property is getting organized, rooms cleaned out and functional for ministry, and new strategies are being planned for the betterment of how Bayshore Baptist operates.

On top of all this...The Adult Choir Christmas Cantata is this Sunday morning,the youth are having their Christmas party Saturday night, Christmas Candlelight Service is next Sunday, Christmas in Miami, New Year's Eve Lock-In with the youth at church, and Winter-Jam in January!!!

I feel God rewarded the efforts in working in the youth room because we had a record attendance of 7 youth @ FUSION (yes I celebrate those awesome numbers) I had two girls that couldn't normally come due to dance attend tonight and they said that the times are changing for Wednesdays!!! Hopefully they can come from now on! Thanks God!!!

I feel it's time for Bayshore to "SLAM IT IN GEAR AND GO PEDAL TO THE MEDAL!!!"

A follow up on my Young Life Rant

Every now and then I am humbled. Looking back on my previous bash on Young Life probably was a little pre-mature and nicer words could have been used. For that I apologize to Young Life as a whole. After speaking with an anonymous YL leader from another part of the country he assured me that their ministry is Christ honoring and evangelistic. No ministry organization is perfect, mine is definitely not either...I guess I just got a little heated about this conversation I heard. From now on I will confront the brother\sister first before lashing out on my blog.

I Couldn't Help But Listen # 1

Every now and then I sit outside Starbucks (for tea only...there coffee sucks) or I'm at the finest coffee establishment in the world, JavaMoon Coffee just enjoying myself when it happens....There is always some person who is oblivious to their surroundings and blares out a conversation for the whole place to listen in on. Most of these conversations aren't worth listening to but a few can be quite interesting. I do not make a habit of eavesdropping, but we all have been in situations where we couldn't help but listen. Thus this post series I will start today and continue till eternity upon hearing something enlightening by someone who thinks their conversation was private and meaningless. I now take you back to Saturday night Nov. 24th, 2007. I was sipping on hot tea at Starbucks outside and a couple of friends who hadn't seen each other in a while sat in the next table. My ear tuned in when they started talking about going to Bible School and becoming a Young Life Director. If you don't know what Young Life is consider yourself blessed because it has always reeked havoc on youth ministries here in my county. Young Life is a "Youth Group" that travels from church to church in a region. Having attended them and talked with leaders, I can say that my opinion of them is nothing more of a glorified popular, rich-kid social hangout that focuses on events and having fun instead of getting in the word of God and worshipping him. Listening to this wannabee leader I heard him say that while he was in training, he went on "mission" to this one high scool, he then said that he played basketball with some of the kids later and then bought them beer and drank that night at his house!!!!! Wow!!! I wanted ever so badly to throw my boiling hot English brew in his face for doing that. My views on drinking are not that it is necessarily wrong or unbiblical, but to give it to minors while trying to be their spiritual mentor is absolutely appalling to me.